328 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
an average of about seven days. A comparison of these results would 
seem to indicate that both extremes have been reached. 
In experimenting in this direction, Dr. Law first sought to ascertain 
the tenacity of life of the dried virus. Some years ago Professor Axe 
had successfully inoculated a pig with virus that had remained dried 
upon ivory points for twenty-six days. In order to carry this experi- 
ment still further, Dr. Law inoculated three pigs with virulent products 
that had been dried on quills for one day, one with virus dried on a quill for 
four days, one for five days, and one for six days. These quills had been 
sent from North Carolina and New Jersey, wrapped in a simple paper 
covering, and were in no way specially protected against the action of 
the air. Of the six inoculations, four took effect. In the two exceptional] 
cases the quills had been treated with disinfectants before inoculation, 
so that the failure was anticipated. 
Three pigs were inoculated with diseased intestine which had been 
dried for three and four days respectively. The intestine was dried in 
the free air and sun, and the process was necessarily slower than in the 
case of the quills, where the virus was in a very thin layer, hence there 
was more time allowed for septic changes. In all three cases the ioen- 
lation proved successful. This experiment would prove that the morbid 
products, even in comparatively thick layers, may dry spontaneously, 
and retain their vitality sufficiently to transmit the disease to the most 
distant States. 
Another pig was inoculated with a portion of moist diseased intestine 
sent from [linois in a closely-corked bottle. The material had been three 
days from the pig, and smelt slightly putrid. The disease developed on 
the sixth day. A second pig was inoculated with blood from a diseased 
pig that had been kept for eleven days at 100° I’. in an isolation appara- 
tus, the outlets of which were plugged with cotton wool. Illness super- 
vened in twenty-four hours. 
A solitary experiment of Dr. Klein’s having appeared to support the 
idea that the blood was non-virulent, Dr. Law tested the matter by in- 
oculating two pigs with the blood of one that had been sick for nine 
_ days. They sickened on the seventh and eighth days respectively, and 
from one of these the disease was still further propagated by inoculating 
with the blood three other animals. Notwithstanding the success of 
these three experiments, Dr. Law is still doubtful of the blood being vir- 
ulent at all stages of the disease. 
But one or two experiments were instituted by Dr. Law to test the 
question of infection through the air alone. A healthy pig placed in @ 
pen between two infected ones, and with the ventilating orifices within 
a foot of each other, front and back, had an elevated temperature on the 
ninth, tenth, and eleventh days, with lameness in the right shoulder, 
evidently of a rheumatic character. On the twenty-fourth day the tem- 
perature rose two degrees, and remained 104° I. and upward for six 
days, when it slowly declined to the natural standard. 
A healthy pig was placed in a pen from which a sick one had been 
removed thirteen days before. The pen had been simply swept out, but 
subjected to no disinfection other than the free circulation of air, and as 
the pig was placed in the pen on December 19th, all moist objects had been 
frozen during the time the apartment had stood empty. The pig died on 
the fifteenth day thereafter, without having shown any rise of tempera- 
ture, but with post-mortem lesions that showed the operation of the poison. 
Dr. Law refers to this case as an example of the rapidly fatal action of 
the disease, the poison having fallen with prostrating effect on vital 
organs—the lungs and brain—and cut life short before there was time 
